


Echoes

by idinathoreau



Series: The Fate of Skywalker [2]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Gen, Reincarnation, The Force Awakens - Freeform, The Last Jedi - Freeform, The Rise of Skywalker - Freeform, and some creative liberties, basically the fan theory that Rey is Anakin reincarnated in narrative form, reincarnation theory, with canon events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-19 12:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22044382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idinathoreau/pseuds/idinathoreau
Summary: Her life touched many others'. Some were also touched by Him. And they all remembered the Chosen One.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Rey, Rey & Ahsoka Tano, Rey & Anakin Skywalker, Rey & Luke Skywalker
Series: The Fate of Skywalker [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586719
Comments: 3
Kudos: 81





	1. Part 1: The Apprentice

**Author's Note:**

> A companion fic to _The Long Desperate Life of Anakin Skywalker_ fic. More Rey-is-Anakin-reincarnated shorts, this time from the POV of other characters.

Ahsoka had discovered more about the Force since leaving the Order than she had during her whole time serving in the Clone Wars. Maybe she was just finally looking in the right places. 

She had lots of time alone on Malachor while the Ghost Crew and the Rebels were fighting the Empire to meditate. Stranded as she was, there was nothing else to do but avoid thinking about how she could be helping the Rebellion if only she had a ship. She spent many hours on her failings, and many more exploring the shifting nature of the Force as the young Skywalker rose to face his father. She followed his journey from a distance, wishing he could sense her as well so that she might guide him in his journey. But all she could do was watch and feel. Feel his every loss and triumph as if they were her own.

When Vader turned, she was shocked from her trance by the crippling light of compassion that rippled through the Force. The temple glowed with a dim grey light all around her as the Force moved through her. Anakin had returned to the light. For his son. 

Ahsoka knelt beside the ancient alter, her tears soaking the ground as Anakin’s life extinguished and he joined the living Force. She felt him find her and closed her eyes as the familiar light surrounded her. 

“Anakin…” He’d come back in the end.

She could see him now, an older but more compassionate version of himself, watching her with pride and sorrow.

His voice came to her, fading slowly: _“Listen Snips…there is more to come…listen…find… …again…”_

But that was all. He faded into the Force, leaving behind only the steady pulse of his compassionate act across the future. Even as his presence in the Force faded, the compassion remained, unyielding and comforting.

Ahsoka mourned, but with purpose. Her master had returned and with his dying thoughts, given her a warning. Something else was coming. Something important. And she was to be a part of it. She just had to find it first.

***SW***

Her meditations grew deeper, going beyond the ripples into the very fabric of the Force itself. She examined the line between the Dark and the Light, a simple construct that had been broken long ago and formed even longer ago. She relived the life of Revan, and his trials and suffering. She saw the power of the Force in true balance. She felt the ways of the Je’daii, and their ancient discoveries of the cycles of life and death that kept the universe turning. She learned their experiments with mastering the power of that balance and the Schism that knowledge and lust for power had driven along that divide.

But she could not make sense of it all. All of this, all the pain and suffering, all of the joy and accomplishment, where did it all lead? Just in an endless cycle? A long line…never ending. And the future…? Nothing.

That was as far as she went before she finally left the temple and rejoined the fight. 

***SW***

As the years passed and she journeyed the galaxy, she kept searching. Perhaps she could find the answer to her master’s final request on some distant world. She scavenged the Outer Rim, half looking for Ezra and Thrawn, and half on her own quest for meaning. 

What good was she if she could not find purpose in this?

Several decades passed with no answers. She delved deeper into the Force than any recorded being had since Revan. 

Thirty years after the death of Anakin Skywalker, she found herself deep in Rakata Prime, the site of Revan’s redemption. 

Weary from her many years of travel and the never-ending march of time on her body, she knelt on the ground. Her hood slipped from her montrals and she fell easily into meditation. 

_Revan…Anakin…and then…?_

She had visited every spot of all the legendary Jedi and Sith: the Temples, the battlefields, the sanctuaries, and prisons…

And everywhere she found Anakin’s light. His legacy was everywhere, burning and fading. Thirty years was a long time. Even his influence on the Force was fading.

She dove deeper, her physical fatigue aiding her at this moment. She followed the ripples, further back than Anakin, further back than Revan, further back than even the Je’daii.

There, just as her mind abandoned her entirely, Ahsoka found the great Truth about the Force. 

Immersed so deeply, outside of time itself, she watched the history of the galaxy unfold layer by layer: the Hyperspace Wars, the Mandalorian Wars, the Eternal Empire, the Dark Wars, the Fall of the Old Republic, the Clone Wars, the Empire, the rise of the First Order…and among it all, a light. Sometimes it faded and the galaxy went dark. But always it returned, burning brighter and brighter to fight back the darkness. Life after life living and dying. Nameless grey figures emitting Anakin’s compassionate light. Failing and sacrificing endlessly across all time. 

In the body she no longer acknowledged, tears ran down her face. Such lonely lives. A lonely existence stretching into forever. Was this Anakin’s destiny?

She reached Revan and saw his rise, his fall, and his redemption. She saw his centuries of agony, his enslavement under the darkness, his slow return to balance. Countless others after him…achieving less overall but always with that light…until Anakin. His journey, his compassion and rage at war within himself…his final redemption…and then…

 _“Ahsoka…”_ A voice. So familiar and yet…not Anakin’s…

She turned towards it, sensing an unfamiliar being bathed in a familiar light.

_“Ahsoka…why did you leave?”_

Loneliness, abandonment, directionless emotions and strength. 

_“I wont leave you! Not this time.”_

The cry of a newborn child, the scream as blissful insensitivity gave way to ignorant suffering once more.

“I promise!”

Ahsoka came back into herself, panting with sudden exhilaration at the return to flesh. Renewal. Rebirth. Reconciliation. 

She collapsed on the floor, the feeling burning in her mind. 

_A girl._

She breathed the name, more of a gasp than a word.

“REY.”

She had to find Rey.


	2. Part 2: The Guide

She remembered him of course. She remembered everyone whether they showed her an ounce of kindness or a parsec of hatred.

Jedi General Anakin Skywalker had been a rare bright spot in the midst of a terribly dark war. 

She remembered him entering her cantina at the height of the Clone Wars, the trogruta girl at his side. His easy compassion and crippling fear wafting out from him and surrounding everything within sight. 

Maz had shuddered, feeling his power. His potential for both great good and great evil. She may have been rather short with him as a result, even if they were only seeking supplies. 

In the end, he had brought great good. Skywalker and his padawan fought off the Separatist-hired mercenary gang and managed to _not_ completely destroy her business in the process. They’d even apologized for the damage they had caused.

She hadn't found the time to warn him, but she suspected those closest to him already knew of his destiny. Maz vowed to herself that if she ever encountered Skywalker or his padawan again, she would help them in any way she could. But alas, time did not permit her another encounter with a Skywalker for a long while. And she never again saw the trogruta girl.

Many decades and two wars later, another entered her cantina. Before she even saw them, an intense concentration of the Force crashed over her. She nearly stumbled from the impact.

She spun and saw…

“Han!”

But it was not him who had caused such a ripple.

It was the dirty, bright-eyed girl at his side. 

She pretended not to notice, so as not to frighten her. But the whole time she spoke with the smuggler, her focus was on the scavenger. The girl radiated with power, even if she didn’t know it yet. The Force swirled around her, struggling to enter but the girl not knowing how to let it. She was equal parts compassion, uncertainty, and fear.

So similar to Skywalker and yet…

As the girl ran after her fearful friend, Maz took the opportunity to learn more about her. Snapping her goggles back over her eyes, she turned to Han. 

“Who’s the girl?” She finally asked.

As Han told her the way in which they’d met, he only confirmed what she already knew. 

The Force moved through everything and sometimes, it moved through the same thing twice. Han continued to talk, mentioning the girl’s incredible piloting skills but Maz had already moved on to other things. Her mind was racing as the pieces all clicked into place for her. 

It had been decades since Anakin's sacrifice to balance the universe. In doing so, Anakin had been reborn and embraced by the Force. It appeared that Revan’s prophecy had come true. 

Maz left the smuggler as she felt the saber in her basement call out. She followed the girl down the stairs, keeping her distance as Anakin’s old blade called to his new incarnation to show her her destiny.

The Chosen One had more work to do.


	3. Part 3: The Daughter

She felt her long before they ever met.

Ever since she was a child, Leia could _feel_ other people. She had never had a way to explain it, at least not until Luke had taken the time to explain what the Force was and shown her her connection to it. She’d just assumed everyone had that bright place inside of them filled with familiar voices and sensations of love. People important to her had been there, like her father and her close friends on Alderaan. After it was destroyed, she felt those connections vanish. 

New ones took their place: the burning, annoyingly bright light that was Han, the gentle familiar glow of Luke, and the bottomless dark pit of Vader. All through the struggle against the Empire, Luke and Han were there, standing with her against Vader’s cold. 

When Vader had died, it felt as if a bright fire had been lit in the center of that void where she felt them all, flaring just briefly enough to scorch everything and then slowly burning out. Vader had faded from her. Many years later, Luke and Han did too in their own ways.

Then for a long time, she felt no one. Not even the twisted, dark wraith of her son. All there was in her void was a muted light. Something, or perhaps nothing. A great potential. A bud not yet opened. Something sleeping.

She threw herself into the Resistance as her son adopted his grandfather’s dark legacy. She did whatever she could but he was too far gone. She was the only light remaining. She waited patiently for the bud to bloom.

***SW***

After the Battle of Takodana, the light suddenly exploded. Suddenly it was everywhere. SHE was everywhere.

Leia felt her fear and her pain, the way in which the Force moved around her and engulfed her completely. It terrified her, so much so that she was almost glad that her son had prevented her from meeting the girl when she rescued Han, Chewie, and Finn. She wasn’t sure she could handle Han’s infuriating warmth and the girl’s strange, potent resemblance to Vader at the same time.

No matter how often she reached, she could not seem to make the girl aware of her presence. Leia could feel her as assuredly as she could feel the sun on her skin. But to this girl, her own presence might as well have been the vast void of infinite space.

She felt Han’s death and moments later, a rush of focused rage spiraling towards a familiar dark pit. She watched as the girl ran closer and closer to that darkness, embracing it for power just as her father had and she was gripped by fear. The light was lost to the temptation of the dark. 

But just as she teetered on the edge of a fall, the darkness vanished, replaced by a flash of light. The sudden shift left Leia stumbling, relieved that her father’s darkness would not return to her void.

She hung back after the Battle of Starkiller Base, watching from a distance as the Falcon landed and Chewie carried the boy, Finn, onto the waiting medical transport. She wasn’t ready to see the girl, wasn’t ready to look into her eyes and accept her into her life. She forced herself to walk slowly towards the ship, afraid of what she might see. Would it be her father’s hatred? Or his burning compassion?

But as the crowds parted and the famed “scavenger” came into view, something finally clicked for Leia. The loneliness. 

As their eyes locked across the dozens of faces, she saw only a girl. A lost, exhausted girl flowing with more power than she could possibly comprehend. She feared her power, but she was not afraid to use it. Her anger simmered within her but compassion held the key to its release.

She was everything Vader had been…but unrestrained by a boundary between the light and the dark. Unafraid of her emotions. She was grey. Her life had been an endless deluge of darkness. But the light had always fought back. Now the battle within her constantly wore on; both sides winning in their own ways. Leia’s heart swelled with compassion. How exhausting.

So Leia reached out, abandoning her apprehensions and let her light pour into the girl’s life. Ever so slightly, she felt the void brighten.

The girl, the one called Rey hugged her back and they both felt the minuscule shift as the light burned slightly brighter in them both. Rey gave her hope again. Hope that anyone could be reborn.

***SW***

Years later, as Leia took over Rey’s training, she pondered the shortcomings of the Jedi teachings. For all his wisdom and experience, Luke had been unable to address the darkness within the girl. Leia struggled to reach it, allowing Rey her outbursts and flairs of power in the hope that allowing the volatile girl to confront and embrace her emotions would steady her.

But Rey was still filled with fear. And Leia couldn’t address that. Not without revealing what she already knew about her.

The soul of her father, reborn with the blood of the galaxy’s greatest evil. 

How could she have prepared her for that?

As Rey left to face her destiny, Leia could think of only one thing to say that would guide her through the darkness ahead.

“Rey…never be afraid of who you are.”

She had to believe that Rey’s soul was strong enough. It had been once before.


	4. Part 4: The Son

She always felt like a shadow. 

From the moment he laid eyes on her, even disconnected from the Force, Luke felt that something was off with her. She was familiar. Maybe too familiar. 

At first he thought it was because she reminded him of himself at that young age: begging Master Yoda to show him the ways of the Force because he just had to know, temptations to the Dark Side be damned. But deep down he knew that wasn’t true. She may remind him of his naïve younger self. But she was not the same as he had been.

She was afraid. Nearly constantly. But she kept that fear on a tight leash, swaddled in a deep love that even his cut-off senses could see. She wasn’t doing this for herself. She was doing it for someone else. Several someones. 

And that kind of attachment was dangerous. So he refused.

Rey followed him around the island, stalking him like the memories of his failures. She said very little. Somehow, that made it worse. He began to think of her as an echo of his nephew: she had so many of Ben’s shortcomings and vulnerabilities. Desperate to learn and silently self-assured.

But maybe where he’d failed with Ben, he could succeed with her. So he gave her three lessons. Three tests.

When she dove straight for the dark in the middle of the first one, he knew. His mind denied it in every sense but he knew what he felt. She reached for the darkness and it welcomed her like an old friend. But the light swirled around her too, purifying her even as she sank into the darkness. She pulled herself from the dark effortlessly, snapping back to that middle ground, hardly seeming aware of the implications of what she could do.

Maybe that was why he continued to teach her, even after that failure. He knew she wanted answers. Some he had, some he did not. But he could not give her any. Maybe that was why she reached out to Ren so strongly.

When she stood above him, holding the saber that had once been his, he flashed back to another time. 

_A deep raspy voice, a red saber at his throat._

_“there is no escape…don’t make me destroy you…”_

But she did not harm him. She sought only truth and balance. Not revenge, not destruction.

And that would be her undoing.

He knew that she was fascinated with the mythos of his victory over the emperor. He knew that she thought Ben could follow the same path as Vader. Somewhere deep within herself, she grasped this truth, had such faith in it. Almost like she had lived it before.

He was too apprehensive to stop her. 

But her goodness, her hope gave him something he’d thought lost a long time ago. _Compassion._

***SW***

As the last of his strength faded, as he stared into the Ahch-To sun and the mirage reflection, he pondered her journey. She was strong, and she was determined. She could carry the light while embracing the dark. The Jedi as the galaxy had known them might be gone. But she would change their legacy and carry them forward.

As he slid into the Force, something became clear to him at last. 

_Father…you came back._


End file.
